Lake-Edge Density (LED) Dataset for the NWB LCC Planning Region

Lake-edge density (LED) is an indicator of hydrologic connectivity and vegetation structure. It quantifies the linear density of terrestrial-aquatic edges and represents the abundance of riparian habitat along large waterbodies (i.e., lakes and wide rivers). The density of lakes and permanent water bodies varies markedly across the boreal and is a result of the cumulative effect of large-scale ecological processes such as glaciation, soil formation, and photosynthesis. Riparian zones are the ecotone or interface between terrestrial and aquatic habitats (Naiman et al. 1993). They support considerable species diversity (Naiman et al. 2002), with unique avian communities and characteristics (Hannon et al. 2002), and unique forest stand [...]